AT: “Feminist Kritik of Rights”

AT: “Feminist Kritik of Rights”

Helena Silverstein, Professor, Lafayette College of Government and law, 1996, Unleashing Rights: law, meaning and the animal rights movement, p. 114-5

From the perspective of animal advocates, the primary problem with the language of compassion and its associated language of protection rests in the emphasis on humans. Humans, in fulfilling their proper role in humanity, should treat animals with compassion and concern. If not, the important result is not so much that animals will be harmed but that humans will be acting cruelly. The reflection, then, is upon human activity and character rather than on animals. Moreover, the notion of protection tends to inspire paternalistic attitudes toward animals. Animals need protection because they cannot help themselves. This paternalistic perspective does two things. First, it suggests human superiority over the nonhuman world, with humans acting as the defenders of animals. Second, the paternalism stemming from protectionism clouds the fact that the protection animals require is protection against humans. As such, protectionism, again, is human-centered. The concept of human protection of animals both includes the notion of hierarchy and suggests that animals need protection from something besides humans.

Another problem with the language of compassion stems from its limited nature. As it is traditionally understood, the notion suggests that humans should be compassionate in our use of animals. In other words, humans can use animals for whatever ends we desire, but in doing so we should strive for compassionate treatment. Thus, when raising animals for clothing, meat, entertainment, and so forth, the conditions should be tolerable. As long as our treatment of animals is not characterized by wanton and gratuitous cruelty, then compassion is being achieved. From this perspective, animals are still viewed as objects for human pleasure and disposal, and the assumption of animal inferiority is reinforced.
FEMINIST KRITIK OF RIGHTS BASED ON SIMPLISTIC, VAGUE GENERALIZATIONS

Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2001, Defending Animal Rights, p. 56

Now there is, I think, much that is unclear in the preceding account. The concepts used to describe male mind are so general and vague that it seems the better part of wisdom to withhold judgment of the idea’s validity until a much fuller, more precise story has been told. I will have more (but not enough) to say on this topic later. These matters to one side, what may be said for and against the male mind defense? I will consider five areas of controversy. The first is empirical and concerns disputes about the evidence for the portrait of patriarchy sketched previously; the second concerns the paradoxical presuppositions of the male mind defense; the third and fourth challenge the alleged shortcomings of “hierarchical” thinking; and the fifth explores, albeit incompletely, the way some feminist theorists have used elements of the male mind defense to criticize my position regarding animal rights.

AT: Feminist Kritik of Rights

Tom Regan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, North Carolina State University, 2001, Defending Animal Rights, p. 59

We have all had similar experiences, and most of us have had them not rarely but fairly often. Moreover, most of us are familiar with the process by which we come to recognize that our feelings (for example, about members of religions or races other than our own) are grounded in beliefs that we have accepted uncritically (for example, the belief that Native Americans are lazy and shiftless). Once we see through the prejudicial character of such beliefs, the feelings we have toward others (for example, Gentile feelings about Jews, or Caucasians’ feelings about African Americans) can and often do change. Throughout this process our capacity to reason is called on to play a role that our capacity to feel cannot perform.

More generally, emotions without reason can be blind. The task of checking the factual and inferential basis of the emotions we feel exceeds both the reach and the grasp of our power to feel them. In a very real sense, this is part of the human condition. How, then, can it plausibly be judged to be patriarchal to recognize the limits of emotion or the role of reason in this regard? We do not denigrate the importance of emotions in human life if we rank reason “above” emotion. For my part, then, I am not convinced that recognizing a dualism or hierarchy between reason and emotion is a bad thing in general or a symptom of male dominance in particular.

Gary L. Francione, Professor of Law, Rutgers University, 1996, Rain Without Thunder, p. 6

Fourth, I emphasize that in defending the need for rational discourse, I am not in any way diminishing the importance of an emotional response to the plight of animals. Indeed, I agree with feminist Marti Kheel that a “unity of reason and emotion” is important for animal rights theory, and with Tom Regan, who maintains that “philosophy can led the mind to water but only emotion can make it drink.”